Remote Senior Developer Owl
KnowledgeOwl
We’re looking for an end to end web developer to help us not only build better software but build a better company and have a positive impact on the world around us. We value developers who are able to solve problems using both innovative and pragmatic thinking. As part of a small team, you will be working closely with the CTO/co-founder, 1-2 other developers, and the rest of the company to ensure that we are delivering the best possible solutions to our customers.
Job role
This role is a combination of new feature development, feature enhancements/maintenance, and bug fixing. For new feature development, you’ll be responsible for building and designing brand new features for our application, like a knowledge base usage report. You’ll need to be able to own that new feature through the entire development cycle (design, build, test, document) and help support it with enhancements and bug fixes after its initial release. We want someone who has the technical chops to build out brand new features and functionalities on the backend and unravel existing functionality and code. It’s a bonus if you also have an eye for UX design.
Part of your responsibilities will also be to maintain and improve the existing codebase, which includes fixing bugs, troubleshooting, and potential refactoring work. We have a very small team of developers and a legacy codebase. Our size necessitates taking initiative and solving problems you’ve likely never encountered before. We’ve been working hard to modernize all of our tech. While we’ve come a long way, we still have more work to do. If you can find joy in the creative process of implementing improvements without tearing everything down, you will be a major asset to our team.
In all cases, while we want you to take ownership of your work, that doesn’t mean you’re working in a vacuum. The rest of the team (and anyone else in the company) will gladly help you–but if you’re the lead developer on a feature, we expect you to own it and keep it moving forward. Our ideal candidate is someone who is able to work independently (self-managing) while still being able to collaborate with the rest of the team and the company as a whole.
Also, if you noticed the “document” part of the feature development cycle and panicked–don’t worry! You’re not expected to write product documentation, but you’ll serve as a subject matter expert for any questions our documentarian might have on features you build.
Since we’re a small team, there’s an opportunity to wear multiple hats with room to grow. For example, if you are interested in cloud engineering and devops, you would have the opportunity to jump in, learn, and do. A parliament is a group of owls and we try to keep our parliament balanced, with each owl doing the types of work that we enjoy, regardless of role. So we’re not just looking for someone who has a particular skill set, but also someone who’s interested in being part of our collaborative team, who’s comfortable in a code review but also enjoys talking a little bit of company strategy and big picture.
Job role breakdown (Less words, more bullet points)
- Work independently, self-manage
- End to end feature development
- Design
- Build
- Test
- Document (working with documentarian)
- Support/maintenance (bugs, continuing enhancements)
- Improve existing codebase, fix bugs
- Help the support team to help customers
- Manage the product roadmap alongside the rest of the company
- Become an expert in the software
Buzz words / phrases we like
- Inquisitiveness / curiosity / desire to learn
- Team player
- Innovative yet pragmatic
- Tendency to go above and beyond
- Tenacity
- Eye for design
Tech stack this job uses
- PHP8
- MongoDB
- MySQL
- Git
- Gulp
- NPM
- Docker
- AWS SDK
- HTML
- Javascript / JQuery
- Vue
- CSS
About us
We're a small, 100% remote software company with a core belief that business can be a force for good. We currently have 8 owls, who are all working on our single software product, KnowledgeOwl, in a passionate pursuit of our mission:
We share the KnowledgeOwl experience
Making valuable knowledge base software
Giving great service to everyone we meet
With the belief that business can be a force for good
Being helpful and kind in all our actions
To make life better for ourselves,
Our teammates, our customers,
And our communities too.
Our customers use us for everything from organizing their local sports teams to providing product documentation, capturing internal HR and customer support docs to displaying customer-facing portfolios and support materials.
We’re a diverse team, and we strive to create the type of work lifestyle that we want. We’re trying to do business in ways that make the world a better place. We're all motivated to help people, and we've designed our product and support to do just that.
We have a true dedication to providing an amazing experience for our customers, what we call the KnowledgeOwl experience. We build features based on customer requests and input. We give customers a lot of ways to customize their knowledge bases and we pride ourselves on quick support turnaround and helpful solutions.
Diversity and Inclusion
We believe in supporting people, and building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive company is core to our mission and values. Our goal is to ensure that KnowledgeOwl maintains an inclusive environment where all people feel that they are equally respected and valued. We welcome applicants of any educational background, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, age, citizenship, socioeconomic status, disability, and veteran status.We believe that our differences can create new ideas, offer unique perspectives and speak on behalf of all of our customers and consumers. If you think you have what it takes but don't check all the boxes, reach out anyway - we’d love to hear from you.
Who you'll work with
- Pete Grigg, Chief Technical Owl (co-founder):Pete's responsible for everything in the software. He built it and currently maintains everything. You'll work the most with him. We don't have 'supervisors' here, but he's your main resource for all things code-related.
- Kate Mueller, Product & Customer Champion, Resident CheesemongerKate is our Product & Customer Champion and Resident Cheesemonger. While she wears many hats, Kate spends most of her time focusing on Product Management and the KnowledgeOwl experience. She also helps with support and escalations. She is our best practices guru and was formerly a customer!
- Marybeth Alexander, Knowledge Goddess & Chief Executive Owl (co-founder):Marybeth insists she isn't in charge, but the rest of us consider her the boss. She knows our customers and product better than anyone. She's been here since ground zero with Pete. She's the ultimate source of KO knowledge, and she'll be there to help with anything you need.
- Will Simpson, Chief Operations Owl:As the COO, his job is to provide servant leadership, management, and accountability to the operations team. You will report to him.
Other important stuff
- This is a contract position. You will start off as a contractor for an agreed upon time. If you like working with us and we like working with you, we will extend your contract.
- As a contractor, you specify your hourly rate and schedule. We do not offer insurance, retirement, or similar benefits. You should budget this into your hourly rate.
- This is a 100% remote position. Work from wherever and bring your own computer. We can't sponsor work visas, so you'll need to have appropriate permission to work where you live.
- We will perform background and reference checks for selected candidates.
- You must love, or can learn to tolerate, owls and owl-related puns.
If you are interested in starting a conversation about the position please complete our survey/application or feel free to email Will at will@knowledgeowl.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
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